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Monsters: Godzilla the Movie (2014) A Truly Sympathetic Monster

An enjoyable movie—more of an action flick, I think, than a horror movie. But is Godzilla a monster? I don’t think so. Not in the traditional sense. Godzilla is the hero of this movie, or at least, he should have been.

Admittedly, I expected Godzilla to be the bad guy, to attack humans, to destroy cities. Well, he did destroy cities, but it was for a good cause, to restore balances and destroy those other things. The real monsters who would have destroyed the world, and were trying to mate—gross. Instead, I caught myself yelling at the stupid humans and rooting the giant reptilian.

Everything humans, and the military throw at Godzilla, the beast was able to handle. Ships, guns, rockets, paratroopers—no problem. You would think they would have knocked it off, and got out of the hero’s way considering all their efforts were useless against the other invasive species. They needed just to step aside and let our monster do his job!

“In Summer 2014, the world’s most revered monster is reborn as Warner Bros. Pictures, and Legendary Pictures unleash the epic action adventure “Godzilla.” From visionary new director Gareth Edwards (“Monsters”) comes a powerful story of human courage and reconciliation in the face of titanic forces of nature, when the awe-inspiring Godzilla rises to restore balance as humanity stands defenseless.”

I didn’t find the human characters all that compelling despite the efforts made to bring their stories to life. No, did the movie leave me thinking, this is a “powerful story of human courage.” I don’t think there was ever a point that I cared about them enough to fear or be anxious about their survival. I had more empathy for Godzilla who seemed to play a secondary role to everything else in the movie. He (Is Godzilla he?) is a great example of a sympathetic monster. The poor behemoth was only trying to do his “job.” And protecting humanity and earth in the process.

For me, the best human character in the movie was the bus driver! I cheered for him. He was not staying on the Goldengate Bridge with monsters in sight, and suspension cables were snapping. And those little wooden police barriers did not stop child-saving hero. I

Overall, this is a fun action-adventure movie with some fantastic digitized monsters. I tried to find a picture of one of my favorites parts—Godzilla breathing some kind of nuclear fire down the other monsters throat—but couldn’t locate one. It was a very cool move on our monster’s part.

I think I became quite fond of this guy!

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Jeannie Davide-Rivera

Jeannie is an award-winning author, the Answers.com Autism Category Expert , contributes to Autism Parenting Magazine, and the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. She lives in New York with her husband and four sons, three of which are on the autism spectrum.

I think you are right: this version of Godzilla is more a straight action movie than a horror movie, with the Lizard King being the action hero.

I also totally agree about the bus driver. He was the smartest human in the entire movie! Bryan Cranston is the only interesting non-monster character in the movie, and they kill him off at the end of the first act.

This totally felt like a straight action flick. I, too, couldn’t sympathize with the characters. I thought they made Joe a very sympathetic character at the beginning of the movie, but as soon as the monsters arrive, they kill him off, which left me with no one to car about, stripping the tension and fear from the story. Despite all of the destruction and danger, I felt no fear or sympathy. The film was entertaining, but it wasn’t compelling to me.

I liked the idea of Godzilla being a sort of hero. I wish they would have done a little more with it like in Kong:Skull Island. I liked how they showed emotion with Kong. I felt that Godzilla acted mainly on instinct. I kind of agree that the people were not very compelling at times. I think the people were more background and to help push the story forward.